We landed on Isabela, the largest Galapagos island but one of the youngest and one of the least visited. Isabela itself has several volcanoes, most of which are still active, making it one of the most volcanically active places on the planet. Two of them (Ecuador and Wolf) are exactly on the equator with Wolf being the youngest and the highest point in the Galapagos. Because tortoises find it difficult to cross all the new lava flows, several distinct species have developed on this one island. Access to much of the island is restricted, including the volcano that is home to a recently discovered colony of pink iguanas.

After paying yet another entrance fee to land on the island, we walked through the small main village of Puerto Villamil to visit the Interpretation Centre. This is located in an area of very varied environments and we were able to spot more very pink flamingos on the way. The centre had a lot of interesting information about the geography and the history of the islands. It also houses another tortoise breeding centre for different species of tortoise and, as well as the varies ages of tortoises, we saw an interesting display of the stages of tortoise development whilst still in the egg.

We sailed round to a different bay, Tintoreras, where we walked out onto a bizarre landscape of black spiky rocks. This is a type of lava known by its Hawian name, A-a, in imitation of the sound you make if you try to walk over it in bare feet. This is really new rock but on the windward side you can see colonies of white and green lichen building up and beginning to eat away at the rock. Perhaps in another few thousand years it will begin to have more plants.

Some parts closer to the shore are covered with pieces of dead and broken coral. This has come about because the surface uplift has pushed up coral beds faster than the corals could migrate down to deeper water. Being too shallow and too hot to survive, they have died and been broken up by the action of the sea. Sometimes it appears that this action can be very fast; in 1954 a part of Isabela was uplifted by 4.5 metres and the shoreline pushed out by 3/4 mile leaving coral beds exposed and many sea creatures like sharks and turtles stranded on land.

Another part of the area has a shallow inlet where sharks have been known to come in and rest but there were none there when we were there. After our final activity of snorkelling in a nearby bay with mangroves and small islets we returned to our boat, spotting a small group of  Galapagos penguins (the only tropical penguins in the world) on the way. This was quite exciting as we have seen a few penguins over the last few days but they have always been swimming and just making a very fleeting appearnace on the surface. These ones were just hanging out on the rocks.

Back at the boat we said goodbye to some of our party. A French couple, Simon and Sindy and our English co-patriots Katy and Jesse had decided to jump ship here and spend a few days on Isla Isabela before moving on. The rest of us were returning to Santa Cruz, for many of us to take the trip back to the mainland.